Over-the-Hill Drag Queens Being Used in Fake Prada Smuggling Ring
Written: May 18 '09 (Updated Jun 30 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Faux Dad's assistant, Marco; best friend, Dana; aging drag queens; enough amusement to redeem it
Cons: Author's overuse of certain things; over-the-top situations; Maddie's stupidity
The Bottom Line: Oddly enough, this book amused me enough to regain my interest in the series and prompt me to order the next two.
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| dandj's Full Review: Gemma Halliday - Killer in High Heels |
Maddie has not seen her father since she was three-years-old, and he ran off with Lola, the Vegas showgirl. Now, out of the blue, she receives a call for help on her answering machine that ends in a gun shot. Maddie has no clue where to find her father or how to get hold of him. After narrowing down her search, she heads off to Vegas with her nymphomaniac friend, and her Faux Dad's flaming receptionist. This is all, of course, against the better judgment of her mother (who prefers to forget about Larry) and her not-a-boyfriend (yet) but very sexy detective Ramirez.....who, by the way, seemed to have fallen off the face of the Earth since their near-sex incident six weeks earlier.
With her father on the run, the body count on the rise, and her bosses breathing down her neck for her Rainbow Brite jellies design, Maddie has only so much time.
Someone with luck like Maddie's should not be getting involved in dangerous games such as these, but her need to help the father she remembers only as a hairy arm waving out a window is inexplicably overwhelming. With help from some unexpected sources, she might make it through a few scrapes. When it comes right down to it, though, she's a bumbling novice, and the bad guys aren't (supposed to be).
"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" may be the motto, but when Maddie stumbles into a ring of fake-Prada-pushing smugglers, a group of overaged drag queens, and gets mixed up with the mob, she may not be leaving Vegas outside of a body bag.
Killer in High Heels by Gemma Halliday is the second book in the "High Heels" mystery series, featuring L.A. (children's) shoe designer Maddie Springer. After having read the first book over a year ago, I was determined to never touch this series again. (Review forthcoming--thankfully, I found my notes and didn't have to re-read it.) I have this thing, however, with being unable to start a series and not follow it through to the end, no matter how bad I think it is. I am a bibliophile...what can I say?
Some of the aspects that got so thoroughly on my nerves in Spying in High Heels were still present in this volume, but not to the same degree. Well, the constant tossing in of what numerical road Maddie is driving down (the 405, the 110, the 105, etc.) was toned down quite a bit. The other habits Halliday has were still present and accounted for, but they didn't bother me so much. She has this thing about mental forehead slaps and mental eyerolls. (This chick's forehead would be permanently marked if she literally slapped her forehead as much as she mentally did.) She believes cutesy names for people Maddie meets (Scary Gun Lady, Ponytail Guy) are...well...cute. After the tenth time, or so, it's gone beyond that. She also has a fondness for praying to the gods of just about anything (prophylactics, ditzy blondes, etc.)
Added to my previous issues are a couple of new ones. The situations Maddie and her cohorts find themselves in (and the way they get out of them) fall over the precipice into way ridiculous on more than one occasion. Maddie is not a street-wise person, yet she insists upon putting herself into the thick of things and usually ends up directly in the path of a criminal's lack of humanity because of it.
As for the sex with Ramirez? How many women (even girly-girls) will stop cold in the middle of all-out, passionate first-time, almost-to-the-sex because they realize they haven't shaved their legs that day? To make it worse, she then complains about not getting any from him. Sorry, love, no sympathy here. You had your chance and refused to take it.
Okay, so it seems that the negative points still should have piled up and disgusted me as much as my first attempt at this series. Oddly enough, this book amused me enough to regain my interest and prompt me to order the next two books through my library's interlibrary loan system. I just hope they continue to improve rather than decline.
Recommended:
Yes
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dandj
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Member: Danielle Reid
Location: Michigan
Reviews written: 439
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In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season ~ Dave Barry
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